Brooklyn’s Bicycling Culture Doesn’t Ease Risks for Riders

The statistic was alarming enough on its own: The number of cyclists killed by motor vehicles on New York City streets in 2016 had matched 2015’s total just eight months into the year.

But beneath that news was another concern. Eight out of 15 of the deaths occurred in Brooklyn, which is considered to be one of the most bicycle-friendly boroughs and is home to the city’s largest number of bicycle commuters. Three of the deaths had occurred in the Bronx and two in Manhattan, while Queens and Staten Island had one apiece.

Cyclists interviewed around Brooklyn on Friday searched for answers as to why the borough had become the most dangerous for cyclists in the city. Many said that while Brooklyn had become more bicycle-friendly in recent years, as had the city at large, the statistics proved there was much room for improvement, particularly in an era in which one of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s main efforts, Vision Zero, aims to eliminate traffic deaths entirely.

Alex Picca, 38, the owner of a bike shop with locations in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and in Ridgewood, Queens, said that infrastructure, particularly bike lanes, still lagged in many parts of Brooklyn. Even where there were bike lanes, the gaps between them in many areas left some cyclists vulnerable for portions of their commutes. “Over the past year or two years, I haven’t really noticed a meaningful difference,” Mr. Picca said.

But even the presence of bike lanes is not a surefire way to prevent fatal crashes.

Matthew von Ohlen, 35, a bartender and avid cyclist was killed while bicycling home in a bike lane by a hit-and-run driver on Grand Avenue in Williamsburg in July. The police have yet to arrest the driver.

Mr. Picca’s store, Bike Slug, on Bedford Avenue, is next to a bike lane that is exposed to lanes of rapid traffic, he said. “Multiple times a week, we talk to cyclists who have just been in an accident or been in an accident in the last few days,” he said.

Instead he said, Brooklyn could use more protected bike lanes — which are separated from traffic by a barrier or by a row of parked cars, and now line many of the avenues in Manhattan.

According to 2015 data from the Transportation Department, Brooklyn had 83.8 miles of protected bike lanes, compared with 121.9 in Manhattan. The lanes have been shown to reduce injuries by pedestrians, car occupants and cyclists by as much as 20 percent. The department announced in March that it planned to install more than 15 miles of protected bike lanes in 2016, including a two-way lane in Marine Park in Brooklyn.

A spokesman, Scott Gastel, said the department was continuing to expand biking infrastructure and lanes.

And while certain parts of Brooklyn have seen streets transformed with bike lanes, some riders say parts of the borough hark back to a less bike-friendly era.

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Matthew von Ohlen’s parents attend a memorial service for him in July after he died bicycling.CreditChristopher Lee for The New York Times

At least three cyclists have been killed in southern Brooklyn this year, where a glance at a bike lane map shows vast areas without lanes, protected or not.

On January 19, a cyclist was struck by a hit-and-run driver around 5 p.m. near East Ninth Street and Avenue U in Sheepshead Bay. He died later that day. On May 9, a cyclist was hit and killed around 10 p.m. near Avenue P and East 12th Street in Midwood after a driver ran a red light and crashed into another vehicle, sending both careening into the cyclist, according to the police. (The location is near a “potential future bike route,” according to the city’s bike lane map.) And in July, Sean Ryan, 17, was killed in Gerritsen Beach after being struck by a driver who the police said crossed into a painted median and struck him.

“There’s a car culture,” said Julie May, 40, a cyclist who lives in Ditmas Park. “There are more cars here and this old-school mentality that cars rule.”

Ms. May was a founder of a biking advocacy group for the area, the Flatbush Bicycle Coalition, in 2012, but said it folded after failing to find the support it needed.

Manhattan, with 1.6 million residents, was close behind with 15,000 regular bicycle commuters, according to statistics from 2014.

“If you look to the crashes, you see predictable reasons, namely bad street design,” said Caroline Samponaro, the deputy director of the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives. The number of cyclists and pedestrians killed in hit-and-run collisions — 26 this year — has also eclipsed the 23 that occurred in 2015, the group said.

In 2014 and 2015, Queens recorded the most cyclists killed by motor vehicles, with a total of 12. Brooklyn was second, with nine.

Some riders said Manhattan’s protected bike lanes and crowds of pedestrians made it a safer place to ride.

“Still not perfectly safe, but much more manageable,” said Clarence Eckerson Jr., 49, a filmmaker and bicycling advocate who commutes regularly from his home in Jackson Heights, Queens, to Manhattan. “In the boroughs, you’re riding a little bit more solitary.”

The latest cyclist to die, Michael Schenkman, 78, was pedaling on Northern Boulevard in Queens when he was struck by a car and dragged about 25 feet on Wednesday morning. He was just blocks from a park and a protected bike path.

Mr. Eckerson said: “Even taking the sidewalk is not a picnic over there. But unfortunately, that’s what you got to do to be able to ride miles and miles along the waterfront.”

Correction:

An article on Saturday about the relatively high proportion of cyclists killed in Brooklyn misidentified the road intersecting Avenue U in describing where a cyclist was killed on Jan. 19. It intersects with East Ninth Street, not Ninth Avenue. The article also referred incorrectly to the area where at least three cyclists have been killed this year. It is southern Brooklyn, not South Brooklyn.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Thriving Bicycle Culture Doesn’t Ease the Risks That Riders Face on Brooklyn Streets. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe